UN To Investigate Attacks On Peacekeeping In Congo

An investigation will soon be launched to know how the attacks on peacekeepers was possible last month in a part of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), said United Nations.

Announcing the appointment of longtime UN peacekeeping official Dmitry Titov to head the special investigation team the Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday it will evaluate the preparedness and response to such assaults which was the deadliest in about 25 years of the UN peacekeeping mission.

The attack took place on December 7 at a base near Beni and Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are being blamed to probably have been involved in it. Fifteen peacekeepers were killed and forty others were injured. All the dead were from Tanzania.

The mission in DRC is the largest.

The ADF is also blamed for ambush on United Nations peacekeepers in October in eastern Congo that left 2 peacekeepers dead and about a dozen others wounded.

ADF started in 1989 to overthrow Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, but now their basic motives are not clear as they have absorbed other rebel factions and has carried out several attacks.

It was founded by Jamil Mukulu and believed to have links with al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab terror organizations.

Mukulu was arrested in 2015 in Tanzania and extradited to Congo. He is awaiting trial.

About a year before nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed while patrolling in north eastern DRC.

In 1993 two dozen Pakistani peacekeepers were killed in Somalia and several Congolese army troops also sustained casualties attempting to aid the forces.

In early 2006 eight Guatemalan peacekeepers were killed in eastern DRC while carrying out reconnaissance missions.